Stehly Report • April 2019
l3wis Also available in the SF Shopping News
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2019
RIP BOB
Bob and my late dog Sodapop were the topic of this cartoon series. My heart goes out to my number one foot soldier and his GF on the passing of Bob. He passed away this past Monday at the old age of 20, fancy to the end. We will miss you Bob!
The guy who said I wasn’t media suddenly is media
I like how Bowlcut is prepping himself for a run against Captain Converse by not wearing a tie. While I have been hard on him as the mayor, he actually did a pretty good job as a TV show host . . . it actually shows that people with NO media background can actually tell a story. Go figure.
Suddenly the Sioux Falls city council funding the State Theater is 4th on their priority list
The council had a working session a few weeks ago to talk about their ‘budget priorities’. As I mentioned then, two councilors didn’t even bother showing up (Kiley and Soehl) and Council Chair Erickson said she was ‘working with the mayor’s office’ and Selberg said ‘he was just listening’. During the discussion I didn’t hear anyone mention the State Theater (maybe Brekke). If you go to the informational meeting page today you will see a link to the council discussion. About 30 minutes ago I clicked on the link and a PDF showed up with the council rating budget priorities but from what I remember road repair ranked #1 and the State Theater ranked #4 on priorities.
DOC: 022719 Work Session Results.pdf
How in the heck did the State Theatre get on this ranking? I haven’t heard a peep out of the council about the State Theater.
As I mentioned before the flood occurred, there was a rumor going around that the Mayor was negotiating a sponsorship between a big donor and the city for the State Theatre.
Did someone on the council ‘slip’ this into the priority list? Weird stuff. It will be interesting to hear the discussion at 4 PM.
How was the city’s response to the flood?
This letter to the editor touches on some interesting points;
Time and again water problems plague this city, but often time they are attributed to acts of God. Yet, these problems represent so many policy failures on the part of our various local, state, and national governments that it seems maddening.
I had to laugh about this line. I told the council once that God must be angry with Sioux Falls because when the city doesn’t want to pay out a claim they call it ‘Act of God’.
The responsibility of surface water runoff lies in our urban planners; yet, no comprehensive changes to the development of Sioux Falls vis-a-vis its surface water management have been proposed or even floated.
This has always been my issue with the urban sprawl on outskirts of city limits versus density and rehab of our core areas. Fast, irresponsible growth has caused many of our flooding issues. And the advice from the Planning Department when it comes to flooded basements; Slab on Grade.
Finally, the responsibility of emergency response lies in our local and regional officials; funnily enough, despite knowing the troubles this city has with water management, it took until March 15 for a State of Emergency to be declared, well after flooding was quite extreme in Sioux Falls.
Yeah, it seemed no one had a clue ahead of time. Spring? Rain? Thawing? What’s that?
Far from being a an act of God, it is becoming increasingly obvious that such problems are caused by multifaceted policy failures. It is time we demand more of our leaders.
Good luck pulling those ‘Good Christians’ from their prayer rooms long enough to attend a meeting of Emergency Management.